UNCERTAINTY.
"Run! Run for your lives! Run!"
Tom panted out the words as he pointed behind them. The others saw
almost as soon as he, and quickened their pace, though they had been
running almost at their top speed before. There was a reason for Tom's
thus urging them to hurry, although they had a good start of the
bears. The tide, as he had seen, was low. The dory lay at some
distance from the water.
That the craft was a heavy one he knew, and it was likely that it
might take some time for them to get her to the water's edge. In the
circumstances even a brief delay was a thing to be avoided, and it was
important that they should gain every second that they could.
They reached the boat and seized hold of her on either side. But
although the beach was hard and sloping, it was terribly slow work to
drag the heavy craft along.
Tom spied some dead limbs lying below a cottonwood tree and they used
these as rollers, after which their progress was swifter. But just as
they reached the water's edge the bears were upon them. One good shove
and they were knee deep in the water.
"She's afloat!" cried Jack gleefully.
He sprang into the boat. Sandy was not a minute behind him. But Tom's
foot caught on a boulder as he shoved off the bow, and he fell
headlong into the water. As he fell, he was conscious of a hot breath
and a deafening roar almost in his very ear. Then he heard something
crash downward with a dull thud, followed by a scream of pain.
The next instant Jack had him in a strong grip and pulled him on board
the dory. Sandy plied the oars furiously. In a few moments more they
were out of danger and Jack was telling Tom how, just as the big bear
prepared to seize him, following his unlucky stumble, it had come into
his, Jack's, head like a flash of inspiration that in the grapple that
lay in the bottom of the boat was a weapon that could be utilized
against the monster.
He had snatched it up and whirled it around his head for an instant,
and then let the weighty mud-hook, with its sharp points, come
crashing down on the bear's head. One of the points had wounded the
creature too badly for it to give its attention to anything but a
gaping cut for the next few seconds, during which the dory had been
rowed far out of reach of the big bears of Kadiak with which the boys
had had such a thrilling encounter.
"Well, where away?" asked Sandy, as they gazed back at the shore.
On the beach stood the three bears, while beyond them the smoke of
the fire they had kindled towered high into the sky in a wavering
pillar.
[Illustration: He let the weighty mud-hook ... come crashing down on
the bear's head.--_Page 154._]
"We'll pull right along the shore," decided Tom after a moment's
thought, "we may fall in with some ship, or at any rate a native
canoe."
Accordingly the oars were manned and the dory rowed along the coast,
while the boys all kept a sharp lookout to seaward for any sign of a
vessel.
"There's one good thing," said Tom presently; "the smoke from that
fire would attract the attention of anyone who might be in the
neighborhood and lead them to make inquiries."
"Yes, but there's not a vessel in sight," objected Jack.
"Never mind. That smoke must be visible at a great distance. I don't
doubt that the _Northerner_ is out hunting for us and they would not
be likely to neglect such a clue as that smoke column will afford."
"I think you're right there," agreed Jack, "but they may have started
the search in another direction."
"That is a chance we shall have to take."
The brief darkness of the Alaskan night fell without a single sign of
a ship being detected on the lonely ocean. Thoroughly disheartened,
hungry and half crazy from thirst, the boys rowed on till Tom ordered
Jack and Sandy to take some sleep. They obeyed and were soon wrapped
in deep slumber. Tom allowed the dory to drift. Rowing only increased
his thirst, and in any event could not accomplish much good.
They would have rowed ashore long before and searched for water, but
the land off to their right was a frowning escarpment of rugged cliff
which offered no hope of water. The boy found himself wishing that
they had had the foresight to stock up the dory in case of their
leaving the cove hurriedly; but it was too late for such regrets now.
Tom caught himself dropping off to sleep. He dozed half awake and
half in the land of nod for some time. How long it was he did not
know, but he was suddenly awakened by a harsh shout that appeared to
come from the air above him.
"Hard over your helm! It's a boat!"
"Where away!"
"Right under our bow! Sheer off! Hard over!"
Tom sprang to his feet, broad awake in an instant. Right above, like
an immense black cliff, towered the bow of a steamer. He could see the
bright running lights shining like jewels.
"Jack! Sandy!" he bawled out. "Get up! They'll run us down!"
The huge black bulk of the strange craft did, indeed, appear as if it
must inevitably cut the drifting dory in two. But the outcry of the
bow watch had come in time. Just as Jack and Sandy sprang up and Tom
was thinking that everything was over, the great bow swung off. The
steamer rushed by so close that Tom could almost have touched her with
his hand.
"Ahoy!" roared a voice from the bridge. "What boat is that?"
"It's a native canoe," came another voice.
"Not on your life it isn't," yelled Tom. "This is an unofficial
exploring expedition and----"
"Tom Dacre!" bellowed a voice from the bridge.
"Ahoy, uncle!" hailed back Tom, who had caught the word _Northerner_
on the steamer's bow as she was swinging by.
"Tom, is it you? Are you all right?"
There was a ring in Mr. Dacre's tone that showed how he had suffered
since the strange disappearance of his nephews and their chum.
"We never were better in our lives," cried Tom, deftly catching a rope
that came snaking down as the steamer's speed diminished. "But how in
the world did you come to run across us? Talk about a needle in a
haystack!"
"Never mind the details now, my boy. Come on board at once. I can
hardly wait till I see you."
Not many minutes later, in the comfortable cabin of the _Northerner_,
Tom, Jack and Sandy, ragged and begrimed, were telling, between
intervals of eating and drinking, the tale of their strange adventures
since they were lost in the fog. When they had concluded the tale, Tom
inquired of his uncle how it was that he had so miraculously found
them.
"If you hadn't almost run us down we'd never have seen you," Tom
continued, "for I was too sleepy to keep my eyes open."
Mr. Dacre's story was soon told. The two Aleuts who had apparently
deserted the boys had really come back from the village with food.
They were terrified when they found the boys and the dory gone, for
they knew that it was time for the daily tide-bore to sweep through
the straits. Getting a native canoe, they made their way to Kadiak,
sought out Mr. Dacre and told him what had happened. The _Northerner_
was at once put in commission for the hunt, although Mr. Dacre
confessed that he had had a dreadful fear, not unshared by Mr.
Chillingworth and the captain, that the boys had been caught in the
tidal bore and lost.
From the captain's knowledge of the coast, they had been able to make
a fairly intelligent search. Just before the brief darkness closed in
that night they had made out a column of smoke rising on the horizon,
and more as a forlorn hope than anything else, had made toward it,
hoping against hope that it had been kindled by the young castaways.
"And so it was," laughed Tom happily, his hand finding his uncle's.
"After all, maybe those bears were a blessing in disguise. If it
hadn't been for them, we wouldn't have lighted that fire, and if it
hadn't been for the fire, you'd like as not never have found us."